Science Light

American Scientist has run cartoons in its pages since 1970. Here we offer a selection of our favorites.

Over four decades ago, Sidney Harris began enlivening the pages of American Scientist with his wit and whimsy. Hundreds and hundreds of cartoons later, it’s a daunting task to select just a few as part of American Scientist’s celebrations of its centennial year. Harris and other clever artists in more recent decades have captured the surprise of science with copious use of puns, twist punchlines and unexpected connections. The selections appear in the slide show below. Perhaps most famous of Harris’s cartoons, “Then a Miracle Occurs” (below), still elicits smiles when it appears everywhere from museum showings to t-shirts. A 1986 article that Harris wrote about the process of creating his cartoons is available as a PDF here.

To view the images in full-screen mode, click the button at the lower right-hand corner of the slide show. You may navigate using the arrow keys at lower left.